Once upon a time . . .
I love that phrase. It brings to mind all the gentle wonder of childhood, all the sweet imaginings of boyhood, and, for me, I find through it the doorway to the capitol “R” Romantic. That’s what that phrase is, a doorway, a promise of a particular journey, and a hope for a particular end, the well-loved benediction, “They all lived happily ever after.”
Yet these bookends are often maligned as childish, or worse; like Socrates, they stand accused of corrupting the youth. I see the critic’s face even now, frowning, and can taste the general atmosphere around me which condemns before the trial. I think, then, a defense should be mounted to stand against this milieu, for I love these simple bookends.
But what is the attack beyond this general disapproval? It seems these fairy tales fail to promote the values which our culture, perpetually progressing, prefers promoted and, more sinister yet, promotes wicked and outdated virtues. Where we have progressed to equality—we are nearing a perfectly sexless society!—these fairy tales stay locked in the oppressive confines of sexism, of men who seek to win the love of princesses. Where we have progressed to equality—not one man stands higher than another!—these dreadful stories never end in praising such anti-social relics as heroism, nobility, and honor.
Obviously, I have adopted a satirical description, but I fear it is a very true one. I have referred to these phrases as bookends, and I wish to defend them as such: They are not only bookends in the literary sense of working as a framing device, but they are also bookends in the grander sense that they hold together the overarching fairy tale which is a man’s life. These phrases give us what our progressive culture dropped somewhere along in its path, a beginning and an end, a foundation and a goal. These terms are abstracted, imprecise, but powerful. For progress to have any real meaning, do we not need such mystic ideas as “Once upon a time”? Do we not need this transcendent space in which to understand where (or who) we are before we can progress to something new? To have progress, we must be progressing toward something, and what is a better goal than “Happily ever after”?
Yet, I hear the complaint that there is no “Happily ever after,” that fairy tales are lies, perhaps pleasant lies, but lies, that it would be better to find a more truthful substitute. If this benediction is a lie, however, then it is a lie like the horizon is a lie. Like “Happily ever after,” we may journey toward the setting sun, but we will never reach that mystical pool into which the dying daylight sinks.
What are we to make of “Once upon a time”? Is it not a tacit acceptance that the tale is false? I imagine the critic wants me to give a certain year and month, to give him the day and the hour when this story begins. I heartily admit that “Once upon a time” means, literally, never, but also add, that it means always. It is true that this story is to be understood as never having happened, but it is also to be understood as happening forever.
I stand with fairy tales, with ageless accounts of “Once upon a time,” with knights, princesses, and dragons, and I, whether fool or sage, hope for “Happily ever after.”
Tale Told 